passwords

[Andy™]

ever notice how high security sites (like online banking) will only let you use letters/numbers for the password, and reject any with any other character, like

 

[Robojin]

Oooo Andy has thrown down the challenge, is there a prize too!!!

 

[Evans Electric]

Anyone know the reason for this ? I see some ask for letters and numbers . There is also a purely numerical code on mine .

My Hotmail business email address is under constant attack from Microsoft who need to know all my passwords, numerous Doctors from all over Africa who need the same information and the HSBC bank ,who I have nothing to do with , are holding a huge cash prize in their vaults and just need all my banking details so they can release it.

 

[philbas]

The rrason for this is historical.

Secure systems doen't use Microsoft.

Most banking or other secure systems run either on IBM mainframes, or (what was DEC) now HP machines running VMS as an operating system.

Most of the programs are what we would call legacyy (that means it worksray) and are written in COBOL, FORTRAN or some other old language.

When they were written all we had to work with was the ASCII charecter set.

Only 255 symbols to work with and the only ones you could be sure of where 0-9 and A-z anything else was subject to change without notice, eg the

 

[Evans Electric]

Good post Philbas

 

[philbas]

I think i misspelt character at least three times

 

[Manator]

My password is

.............

 

[Evans Electric]

I think i misspelt character at least three times

You did but whose counting

 

[philbas]

I wass

 

[Evans Electric]

Its catching , I've spelt Who,s as whose !!!!